Welcoming refugee children to Rockford: ‘This is your community’

Tuesday

Inside, they try to stay silent, hoping the soldiers or police don't kick down the door.

Because if the men on the other side of that door get through, they “take away somebody they don’t like,” explained RoThen Kui Hoen, 11, a refugee from Myanmar. “The soldiers gotta come and do bad things.”

RoThen said he moved to Rockford last year with his mother, father, three sisters and a younger brother.

“Something happened in my country and somebody died and the coup (occurred),” RoThen said, pantomiming the actions of men firing guns. “So scared.”

RoThen is one of the almost three dozen refugee children participating this week in The Welcome Project, the first time that members of Temple Baptist Church have hosted this type of camp. It is designed to help acclimate the children to life and school in America by teaching them conversational English, helping them make friends and introducing them to basic courses.

“This is like brand new. We can’t even find a model for anything like it,” said Family Life Director Heather Dellamater, who coordinated The Welcome Project.

Dellamater said the weeklong camp is for children entering third- through eighth-grade. The children come from Myanmar, formerly called Burma, Congo, Colombia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Syria and Iraq. They have been designated as refugees after a finding that it would be unsafe for them to remain in their home countries, Dellamater said.

Dellamater, office manager and Women’s Ministry coordinator for the church, 3215 E. State St., said 51 children signed up for the camp, and 35 children attended on Monday and today. The children are divided into groups and rotated through a series of 45-minute sessions: reading, math, vocabulary, computers and gym. Christian music is played and there are 15-minute Bible teachings, too.

“Our ultimate goal is to let them know this is your town, this is your community. We do want you here,” Dellamater said.

Lee Reh, 8, from Myanmar, said he now lives in Rockford with his mother, brother and sister. His father, however, still lives in Myanmar. Lee said his friend’s father told him that when Lee grows up, he could return to Myanmar and bring his father to America.

“I never seen what my dad looks like,” he said. “I miss my dad.”

Eve Candelo, 13, first moved from Colombia to Ecuador with her mother, father and younger brother. She matter-of-factly said they had to leave Colombia “because bad people were going to kill my dad.”

Those people already had killed two of her uncles in their home, she said. She didn’t witness the murders but her parents told her what happened.

The killers wanted the family’s house, which is “a bigger house,” she said, and one of the multiple homes her grandmother owned.

They moved to the United States one year and three months ago and settled in Rockford, she said.

What’s different about living in Rockford?

“Everything,” Eve said.

Rockford resident Patricia Hanstad said she tutors a 10-year-old refugee from Myanmar who remembers what it was like in her home country. The girl immigrated to the United States when she was 8 years old, said Hanstad, whose husband, Gordon, served as Temple Baptist’s pastor before he retired.

“She just said people were mean to us. ... I know it was for religious reasons,” Hanstad said, adding the girl and her family are Christian and they were being persecuted in Myanmar.

How does life in Rockford compare?

“So fine, so good,” RoThen said with a grin, leaning back in his chair.

“People are nice around here,” Lee said.

Pu Nyo Lay, 8, was born in Thailand before she and her two older brothers moved with her family to America. She said she likes to run in gym because they didn’t have gyms in Thailand.

Playing with a ball is tops on Lee’s list of fun things to do. He couldn’t play ball in Myanmar “because I didn’t have a ball.”

“All of the stuff that where I was born wasn’t like this country,” he said. “There’s no cars, just motorcycles.”

It’s colder in America, too.

Suan Piang, 13, was born in Myanmar, where he said it’s a lot hotter and doesn’t rain much.

The Welcome Project ends on Friday, when pupils will receive backpacks with items to prepare them for school, Dellamater said. While they plan to continue the camp next summer, she said Rock Valley College’s Refugee and Immigrant Services program also provides resources to refugee families living in the northernmost 10 counties of Illinois.

Kristen Zambo: 815-987-1339; kzambo@rrstar.com; @KristenZambo

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